Patty in Paris eBook

“Yes, a sort of general racket, with everybody
waving garlands and carrying wreaths, and flags floating
and streamers streaming—–­”

“Yes, and cannon booming, and salutes being
fired, and rockets and fireworks going off like mad.”

“Yes, just that! but now I almost hope we won’t
pass through it, for fear it shouldn’t quite
come up to our notion of it.”

“If we do come to it, I’ll tell you in
time, and you can shut your eyes and pretend you’re
asleep while we go through.”

But the town in question was not on their route after
all, and soon they came flying in to the town of Versailles.
Of course, they made for the Chateau at once, and
alighted from the cars just outside the great wall.

Patty, being unaccustomed to historic sites, was deeply
impressed as she walked up the old steps and found
herself on an immense paved court that seemed to be
fairly flooded with the brightest sunlight she had
ever seen. As a rule, Mr. Farrington did not
enjoy the services of a guide, but for the benefit
of the young people in his charge, he engaged one to
describe to them the sights they were to see.

The whole royal courtyard and the great Equestrian
Statue of Louis XIV. seemed very wonderful to Patty,
and she could scarcely realise that the great French
monarch himself had often stood where she was now standing.

“I never seemed to think of Louis XIV.,”
she said, “as a man. He seems to me always
like a set of furniture, or a wall decoration, or at
most a costume.”

“Now you’ye hit it,” said Paul;
“Louis XIV. was, at most, a costume; and a right-down
handsome costume, too. I wish we fellows could
dress like that nowadays.”

“I wish so, too,” said Elise; “it’s
a heap more picturesque than the clothes men wear
at the present day.”

“I begin to feel,” said Patty, “that
I wish I had studied my French history harder.
How many kings lived here after Louis XIV.?”

“Two,” replied Mr. Farrington, “and
when, Patty, at one o’clock on the sixth of
October, 1789, the line of carriages drove Louis XVI.
and his family away from here to Paris, the Chateau
was left vacant and has never since been occupied.”

“In October,” said Patty, “and probably
just such a blue and gold day as this! Oh, how
they must have felt!”

“I wouldn’t weep over it now, Patty,”
said the matter-of-fact Elise; “they’ve
been gone so long, and so many people have wept for
them, that I think it wasted emotion.”

“I believe it would be,” said Patty, smiling,
“as far as they’re concerned; but I can’t
help feeling sorry for them, only I could never weep
before, because I never realised what it was they were
leaving.”

The party went on into the Chateau, and visited rooms
and apartments one after the other. It was necessary
to do this quickly if they were to do it at all, and,
as Mr. Farrington said, a hasty tour of the palace
would give them an idea of it as a whole, and sometime
he would bring the girls again to enjoy the details
more at leisure.